Holding The Boss - Tibbs
by Eurythmatix
Summary: SLASH -DiNozzo has always loved Gibbs. And he fears the worst if he is to confess his love for the man. What happens when an accident puts Gibbs in the hospital and Tony is faced with the decision as to if he should tell Gibbs how he feels? Maybe he will


Written by Kay Anderson and dedicated to all the TIBBS fans who find simple heartfelt love in wanting Gibbs and Tony to share a romantic moment together.

Title: Holding Gibbs In My Arms

Genre: Emotional and Romantic

Type: SLASH (Gibbs/Tony)

Mode: One Shot

The shot had been fired and I was clutching my gun in my hand...well at least trying to hold onto it.

I couldn't breathe. My chest was aching, my heart thumping like a ritual drum and all I could smell was fear, my aftershave, the inside of Gibbs' car, his well washed car mats. And the rest brought tears to my eyes. His Old Spice invaded my nostrils and as hard as I tried I could smell that sharp tinge of saw dust on his person.

My body was frozen up, my eyes glazed over and my hands were trembling.

'Boss...' I tried to reach over wincing as the pain shot through my right leg trapped beneath the crushed dashboard. And my fingers made contact with his warm blood soaked long sleeved grey shirt. His head was slumped over the steering wheel and he wasn't moving. Oh God Gibbs wasn't moving. Was he breathing?

In the dark I couldn't see where my phone was...shit I couldn't even remember where I kept my phone because on impact with the brick wall in front of the car, my head had slammed against the dashboard and blood was now oozing down my face along my temples and down to my mouth. I saw droplets on my pants and shirt but it somehow didn't bother me. I couldn't think. I was confused and lost.

And then his cell began to ring. At least I figured it was HIS cell. It was wedged between his legs also stained with his blood.

'Gibbs...oh God', I muttered in frustration as I grabbed at my hair with my left hand and reached out for his cell.

In another time I would have found the situation strange: me reaching between his legs to retrieve his cell. But now it didn't matter. And my mind didn't register it.

It was Ziva.

'...llo –'

'Tony? Where are you? Where's Gibbs?' she asked. 'Tony?'

'Ziva', and I tried to breathe but my chest felt heavy and tight, 'Ziva..accident, get Ducky, Ambulance...'

'Where are you? Tony stay on the phone with me', she demanded sounding concerned, her voice distant as if she was talking to me from across a large room.

I looked around and tried to give her the descriptions of places I was seeing.

'I'm tracing the call, Ziva', I heard McGee said in the background and my eyes were suddenly closing. I felt terribly weak and hopeless.

'Ziva...'

'Tony where is Gibbs?'

'He's...' I looked over at him and felt tears come to my eyes. I couldn't say he was dead. Hell I didn't want to say that because I didn't want it to be true. Gibbs never could die. I didn't want him to die and leave us...leave me. 'He's...he's covered in blood Ziva...I'm bleeding, and he's not moving.'

'Can you move?' she asked and I could hear the strain in her voice. 'Tony, are you hurt? Can you move? Do not stop talking to me. Try to check his pulse.'

'I can't...' I said and felt tears burn my eyes. My chest was burning.

'Tony you have to check him. We are on our way but you have to –'

'I can't do it, Ziva! I'm scared.'

'Of what?' she asked and I sighed loudly out of frustration.

'That he might be...gone.'

'Listen to me, do you love him?'

'What?'

'I know about it. I know everything, how you feel and what you are going through.'

My heart began to beat faster.

'You don't know anything about me!' I said angrily and started to cry, my chest heaving as I sobbed uncontrollably. 'You don't know anything.'

'Tony calm down. Do you love him?' when I didn't answer she asked again.

'Yes. Yes! I do. What has that got to do with this, Ziva?'

'Are you going to let him die? You have to help him.'

'I can't –'

'Tony be a man! BE a man! Suck it up and –'

I threw the phone on the dashboard and tried to twist my body around in my seat, ignoring the pain that shot up my leg and to my head. My eyes couldn't focus on Gibbs. And maybe it was the tears clouding my eyes that made me feel like a sissy or it was the dread. Reaching out and yelping as the gash on my head sent a bone chilling bolt of pain through my body, I slowly held unto his left arm and tried to bring him back to sit back fully in his seat. His head rolled to one side.

'Gibbs don't die', I said hoarsely as my hands found each side of his face and became smeared with my boss's blood. 'Gibbs.'

'DiNozzo.'

At first I thought it was the wind or my imagination playing with me. But his eyelids were barely fluttering like leaves barely moving in a soft wind.

'Boss?'

'Not...dead', he moaned and before I even realised what was happening I felt his fingers brush against my left hand that was lying on his lap.

'Wh-are you hurt?'

'Of course I'm...hurt Tony', he groaned and glared at me.

'Where?'

He managed to move aside his tattered grey shirt to expose a gunshot wound that barely nipped to the left of his waist. The slug had burnt through the car seat and when I looked back I saw that it had collided with the backseat's cushioning. Even as he tried to move, blood seeped through forcing me to hold him still as he grunted from me applying pressure to the wound, trying to stop him from losing more blood.

'Can you move your leg?' I asked and he shook his head. I heard sirens in the distance and sighed, keeping his fingers entwined with mine.

This was something I had never done before. I had never ever held Gibbs' hand before; never touched his face, or hugged him...it was one of those desperate and fearful situations. You had no care in the world as to what mattered and didn't matter. And all you did care about was the safety of your partner, your boss, the person beside you who would place his head on a block for you just to save your life.

'Boss', I said feeling my throat parched even as beads of sweat rolled down the sides of my face and down my back.

He turned to look at me, those blue eyes that appeared cold to most people but could immediately drown me within. And that was one of the reasons why I could never really look him in his eyes as we talked or I even updated him on my findings on a case at hand. Gibbs eyes always made me feel vulnerable as if he could see everything within me if I looked at him.

And I didn't want him to see everything within me because he would see too much.

How could you tell someone that you were in love with them? Hell it would be easy for some people...some people might even think it would be easy for me. But in altering the situation my boss was a male and I was a male as well. It had never happened to me before...I had never fell for another guy and I had fallen for him...Gibbs. And I was doomed. For Pete's sake I was a DiNozzo! We didn't fall for members of the same sex! People knew me as being the womanizer, the one to sleep with women just as much times as I would change my underwear. We dated women and got women in a hearbeat without even trying. But here I was totally in love with my boss who was a man and I was feeling like shit. I even wished that it was Ziva I was in love with.

'Tony', he whispered and I honestly believed I had imagined it. Turning to look at him I found him observing me with watery eyes.

'Boss?'

'Losing...too much...blood', he said faintly and I suddenly realised that his grip on my hand was slackening.

'No', I said grabbing his hand and feeling terribly scared, 'Gibbs, stay with me...boss focus, let's talk.' The thing was, I didn't know what to say to him. Sure we could talk about this and that and we had done it before but because of the thoughts running through my mind about him I couldn't just talk to him. But I didn't have to start speaking, he did.

'The guy in the vehicle behind us, was he the one who kidnapped the girl?'

'Definitely', I said, 'Mark Burrows...he had her in the vehicle. I could tell.'

'How...could...you tell?'

'I just know', I said and didn't feel like crap about it because out of all the people I knew, Gibbs understood what trusting your gut meant.

'Your gut...' he stated and I nodded.

The sirens were getting closer and I felt like I wanted to say something to him, but I was afraid to say it.

'Boss, I gotta tell you something', I said and just stopped...more like froze up.

'What is it, Tony?' he asked still looking at me And then the time stretched out further, 'anytime this year?'

Then the Ambulance pulled up and Ducky: Ziva was getting out of the car.

'What do you wanna tell me?' he asked again and my eyes snapped back to his.

'It's nothing', I said and sighed. He did as well. But I didn't realise that he did until after, long after.

'Is he gonna be alright?' I asked the nurse that was standing by the door. She would have been an ideal flirt target for me on any other occasion but this. But now Gibbs was all I was concerned about.

She nodded and smiled at me, 'yes he is going to be alright. He's lost a lot of blood and should be expected to stay in here for awhile to regain his strength but he's doing fine. Earlier he was slipping in and out of consciousness but he's awake now –'

'Great', I said cutting her off, and I placed my hand on her shoulder, moved her aside and walked into the hospital room where he lay on a bed, his eyes closed, saline dripping in a bag, and window curtains pulled closed.

He was wearing one of those horrible light blue hospital robes that was totally exposed at the back. But you couldn't see all that from where I was standing and how he was lying. He was on his back. And I suddenly remembered the last time he had been in a hospital. It had been six years ago when he had been in the same room when a bomb went off. It had been terrible.

Even back then I used to love him but had been totally confused about my feelings. Attraction or admiration…? I knew now that it was both, the former stronger than the latter. And oh how I felt terrible about it all.

But this time he wasn't in a coma, having flashbacks of Shannon and Kelly or forgetting what year it was and who he was. He was lying there and his clear blue eyes fluttered open even as I was about to call out his name.

'Sensed my presence, boss?' I asked smiling, well trying as hard as I could to smile.

He smiled wryly, 'you're like migraine, DiNozzo. Every time you're near me my temples start to throb.'

'How touching', I said and laughed then beckoned to his bed, 'is that comfortable?'

'Unlike you who grew up sleeping in those fancy posh beds, I know about the stiff military ones', and he eased himself up, groaning as the wound in his side maybe pained him. 'The case…'

He waited on me to continue, giving him updates and us finding any leads to the kidnapping. But I didn't offer any. I knew he'd be angry at me, but someone I was angry at him because of some stupid reason and I wanted the same emotion from him. I didn't want to be angry alone. This thing was aching at me, digging away inside of me, gnawing…clawing away… And maybe half of the reason I was feeling that way was because I loved him and just doing that, feeling that way was complicated.

Why did it have to be him: hence me being angry at myself.

And why did he have to be a guy? Another reason to be angry at said self.

'The case, Tony –'

'I don't want to talk about the case, boss.'

Wait for it…

There it was, the Gibbs Glare.

And he pretended as if he didn't hear me. 'Did you find the vehicle? It had to be wrecked. The ransom drop off? Did anyone show up?'

'That was two days ago, Gibbs.'

'Did anyone show up, DiNozzo?' he asked angrily.

'No', I said stiffly, my eyes lowered. 'No one showed, and there's been no luck in tracing the car.'

He sighed and reached out to take the Styrofoam cup that was filled with water. I silently watched as he sipped some through a red and white striped straw. 'We gotta find him, DiNozzo.'

'We're trying boss. We really are –'

'Well then try harder!' and he turned to glare at me.

I had had enough. 'You're always doing this', and I threw up my hands, 'yelling at me, demanding that I do this and that. Can't you at least be nice?'

'Last time I checked', he said sitting up fully now, 'you're my Senior Agent and you're supposed to take care of things when I'm not there, like finding this girl.'

'I said we're doing everything we can. What else do you want me to say? Lie and tell you that we found something when we didn't? Geese', and I walked to the window and pulled the curtains apart. Nothing outside interested me enough. I could feel his eyes on me and tears came to mine.

I could see Ziva getting out a black Mercedes below, her windswept hair making her appear wild as always. Maybe I should have fallen in love with her instead. It would have still been difficult but anything was better than being in love with Gibbs.

'I gotta go', I said turning around, my eyes never meeting his. And I began to walk towards the door, already reaching for my pair of name brand sunglasses that were clipped to the front of my shirt.

'DiNozzo', but I had already reached the door. My hand was on the knob. I turned it and pulled the door open. 'I'm sorry for yelling.'

Gibbs never said sorry. It was one of his rules: 'never apologise it's a sign of weakness.' And although I wanted to go, I really wanted to, I found myself rooted to the spot.

'Great you made me say sorry…happy?'

'I didn't make you say anything', I said a little too harsh.

'What is up with you, Tony?'

'Nothing is up with me!' I retorted and slammed the door shut. 'What could possibly be wrong with me?' I wanted to fake a smile but it would make me look like a jackass based on the current situation.

It was then that he took his left hand and patted the bed to the side of him, signalling me to sit down beside him. I didn't move. Finally our eyes met and I could honestly admit that my heart did the flip flops right there and then. My head became dizzy and I felt like a girl as my knees felt like jelly. But just before he could break down my barriers and pry into my mind, to decipher what I was feeling I blinked and looked away. He was always good at reading feelings but I wasn't prepared to let him do that.

'Come here', he said softly and continued to pat the bed beside him. My eyes remained on his hand. And I shook my head. 'Don't make me ask again, Tony.'

'Or else what?'

'The longer you take, the stronger my hand gets to slap you across the back of your head –'

'Coming, boss', I said quickly and sprinted to the bed, but I hesitated as my eyes glazed over the space beside him where he wanted me to sit down. 'I'll-I'm gonna stand. Don't feel like sitting.'

'Sit.'

'Right', and I sat down after he glared at me but like to the very edge of the bed.

'Afraid I'm gonna eat you or something?'

'More like shoot me', I whispered.

'What?'

'Nothing', and I squeaked.

'What did you do wrong?' he asked keeping his eyes on me. I felt uneasy under his scrutiny.

'Everything's wrong', I muttered and stared down at my hands. This was getting so out of control. Was this how I was going to tell him the truth? Him lying in a hospital bed and me sitting so close to the edge of said bed?

'Tell me.'

'I can't do that, boss.'

'Why not?'

'Because it concerns you', and squeaked, eyes flew open wide, 'did I just say that out loud? Shit. I gotta go, boss', and I began to get up but he grabbed my hand.

'Sit…back down.'

'Don't make me do this', I pleaded, my voice cracking up. 'I don't want to. Don't make me say anything more because it's just gonna mess up the situation and jeopardise everything. Let me just go. I gotta get back to the case, see if I can find something more.'

'Since when do you lie to me, DiNozzo?' Gibbs asked narrowing his eyes at me.

'I'm not lying –'

'You're withholding the truth.'

'That's not lying.'

'It is when it involves me and I want to know the truth.'

'Don't ask, don't tell, Gibbs', I stated.

'I'm asking, you tell.'

'Gibbs it doesn't work that way! You can't, shouldn't try to make someone tell you something they don't want to tell you like that. Sometimes it's better left unsaid –' and I watched as he reached behind him to adjust his pillow then he turned around and blinked several times too many.

'Woah', this head spinning is getting me nauseous', and he leant over to reach for the cup of water. I watched him take a sip.

'You never pressure McGee, Abby or Ziva to know what's going on with them but you always want to know what's bothering me.'

'I care for them but I –' and he tried to place the cup back but almost fell off the bed. I grabbed him around the waist and pulled him firmly back up.

It was then when he was that close to me when my breathing quickened and so did my heartbeat. With Gibbs against me I couldn't help but feel compelled to not let go. And I just kept my arm around him.

'DiNozzo I –' the rest of his words were muffled as I embraced him in a hug, sticking to that for the time being as I tried to get the most of this chance to be this close to him. I didn't want to let go at all. He was tense but then I felt him soften up as I held him there. Where was his gun? I didn't even check that out. 'You're gonna let me go?' he asked softly into my ear which sent tingles down my spine.

I just shook my head and sniffed, feeling the hot tears slide down my cheeks. 'Never.'

'I knew it.'

'What?' I asked pulling away just enough to look at him. The sides of our faces brushed each other's and then before I knew it our lips lay inches apart. My eyes moved to look at his and I breathed in forcefully as my heart thumped in my chest.

I had to do. I just had to because this was the chance I had and I may never ever get it again. So without thinking, acting on impulse, I slowly closed the distance between our lips. It felt…weird yet somehow terribly daring and exciting. My chest felt as if it was going to explode as I tried to part his lips and my tongue longed to flick against his. And he allowed me to.

My fingers trailed paths through his rustled greying hair as I slowly savoured his mouth, tongue. And I couldn't supress a moan as his hand found its way behind me, his fingers digging into my back as we kissed slowly and deep. I felt his tongue work its way around mine, both our lips parted as I reached down with my teeth and bit his bottom lip passionately forcing him to groan as he dared me to continue.

And that alone set me off like fire to the night, my passion for him burning heatedly as he allowed me with ease to take control. With our bodies this close, still exposed skin separated by cloth I felt ecstatic enough. Then when I believed he would have fought me off, when doubts crossed my mind as to me dominating and controlling him, Gibbs pulled away. His hands remained behind me. And in his eyes I could see something more than what I usually saw there within those depths.

I tried to grab him to pull him towards me but he pushed me way only to have me fight with him. I forced him to bring his lips to mine as our hands grabbed at each other, him lashing out then pulling me close as something unexplained changed within him. Before I knew it, as I now tried to pull away believing that he was angered and wanted no more, he pulled me close and crushed his lips forcefully on mine. This time he ravished me with long, deep, passionate kisses.

He grabbed at my hair and pulled my face towards him as his tongue worked its way around mine. And then I pulled away and tilted his head to one side as my teeth grazed across his bare neck taking in the scent of his Old Spice and aftershave. He smelt superbly grand only tempting me to imagine how his naked body would look before me as I made love to him slowly and passionately.

'Tony', he whispered and I pulled away, looking into his eyes that now focused on the door. I looked back and saw no one but immediately figured out his message. 'Not here.'

'Right', I said smiling and although I tried to move away from him, his hands still grabbed at me, at my shirt and I still couldn't help but try to move my lips towards his. 'Damn.'

He laughed and pushed me further away from him. 'Always knew.'

'Knew what?' I asked looking confused.

'That you had a thing for me. When we first met and you tackled me to the ground in Baltimore, I did feel your reaction.'

'You felt my reaction…ohh', and then I smiled. 'I can't remember that.'

'I do.'

'Ahah!'

We both jumped and I spun around only to see Ziva standing by the door, her eyes dancing as she smiled at us.

'Ziva!'

'Don't worry, Gibbs', she said coming into the room, her eyes on me, 'I know all about this secret.'

'What secret?' Gibbs asked and I watched as he tried to appear confused. 'DiNozzo was just adjusting my pillows.'

'Yes and I am a dancing puppy', she said in disbelief.

'No one ever put that past you, Ziva', I said smiling and squeaked as she grabbed me by the neck with one hand and pulled me off the bed.

'Easy, good boy.' I never felt so terrorised before as she held me up against the wall. 'You did it', she whispered and smiled.

I nearly fainted.

**A/N – The end. Hope you liked it. And for my other story Memories in the sand, I forgot to mention that DiNozzo threw up his wine, and it never stopped Gibbs from kissing him See ya!**


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